Rig suggestions for Battlefield 3 on ultra at 1080

Approximate Purchase Date: As soon as I figure out what I'm buying or later if prices will be dropping

Budget Range: Under $1000 if possible

System Usage: Gaming. To be built primarily for bf3

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, Speakers

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: The usual, Newegg, Amazon, etc.

Country: US

Parts Preferences: None

Overclocking: I can if needed

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: I'm basically looking for what will max out Battlefield 3 for the cheapest price.

Reply to gentilexsan

When people state they want to max BF3, what exactly are the settings they are setting to ultra? Is any level of AA included when people ask to run it at max?

Reply to SingingThroughTheStorm

p07h34d wrote :

can you drive to a microcenter? www.microcenter.com

you can get a i5 2500K for $179.99 and any p67/z68 mobo $50 off as a combo purchase but you need to be able to drive there to buy them.

A single 7970 would do what you want it to do for BF3. I have two 6950 2GB that max it very well but you would be better off with the newer gpu.

That or a 7950, both will max BF3. My brothers single 6970 maxes bf3 lovely in 1080p resolution.

If you can reuse a HDD from another system then you save yourself about $80 to $150 on a 500GB - 1TB HDD which could be better spent on a SSD if that is within your budget restraints.

I'll get around to actually making a build for you in awhile.

I know you said under 1K if possible but what is the total max you would want to spend on a boss pc and let me know if you need a win7 OS or HDD

There are no microcenters near me . The closest is a 4 hour drive.

I do need windows 7 but you don't have to calculate that into costs for the pc itself. And I will need a hard drive. I'm not entirely sure what the difference between HDDs and SSDs are but I've been told to go with an SSD.

I may be willing to pay 100-200 more if need be but I will cringe pressing the purchase button. lol

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Reply to gentilexsan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kd4dvLJQP4

8150 @ stock
Metro- min-27 max-60 avg-43
BFBC2- min-45 max-94 avg-65
Crysis2- min-42 max-91 avg-58
Lost Planet2- avg-33
Dirt3- min-75 avg-99
Cinebench- 5.84

i5 2500K @ stock
Metro- min-27 max-59 avg-43
BFBC2- min-44 max-97 avg-65
Crysis2-min-36 max-88 avg-62
LostPlanet2- avg-34
Dirt3- min-79 avg-105
Cinebench- 5.12

Looks like BD fx - 8150 and i5 2500k are pretty similar in terms of gaming performance add in the additional average cost of an Intel platform and slightly higher cost of the 8150 chip and looks like AMD and Intel offer up pretty even results on average as far as gaming as I have outlined and double certified above with link provided. A solid GTX 560ti or Radeon HD 6870 and above will do fine on high settings but to play BF3 perfect on Ultra you will need to sink allot of money into an extreme high end dual graphics solution.

Message edited by Boopoo on 02-16-2012 at 05:43:33 AM

Reply to Boopoo

p07h34d wrote :

similar for single gpu.. sure

when you start to talk about dual gpus

the 8150 is equal to a 955BE overclocked to 4.0ghz and a 955BE overclocked to 4.0ghz can't handle two modern high performance gpus much less cpu intensive games like dare I say.. black ops.. even with a single graphics card..

So if a 8150 and a 2500K and a 955BE overclocked to 4.0ghz are "equal" with a single gpu in "most" games it means either one of two things. Either it means that the games are gpu limited or that the cpus are reaching a bottleneck. I say the former.

a 2500K can handle any dual gpu setup you throw at it, where as a 955BE 4.0ghz can't. If a 955 4.0 = 8150 then how am I supposed to believe that a 8150 = a 2500K? I'm not lol.

Couple of reasons why bulldozer fails as a gaming cpu,

for one its hardly considered a gaming cpu. No games that I know of excell with the 8150, the only program I have heard of is the Win8 OS and they admitted themselves that AMD will no longer attempt to compete in the gaming cpu industry along side Intel because they pretty much claim defeat. Clear by the Hype then fail of the FX Bulldozer series. Also clear by the tactic of removing their dated but equal in performance cpus the Phenom II x4 BE's because they wanted people to buy their new FX series instead. If you could still buy a brand new 955BE C3 you would have no reason to ever upgrade to bulldozer for gaming purposes. By the time Piledriver is out there will be new chipsets dating the older Bulldozer series.

2500K or die

lol and I was one of those people thinking bulldozer was going to come out on top.. I saw differently, now I am married to my intel 2500K and my MSI Z68A-GD65 (G3) and all of their features

ok but not rely relevant imo I own 8150 SLI but thanks anyway for the opinion have a nice day ;-)

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Reply to Boopoo

Concerning about the FX-8150 and the i5-2500k.

I like this article better: Picking A Sub-$200 Gaming CPU: FX, An APU, Or A Pentium?

Sometimes even a heavy overclocked FX-8120 (that's basically a FX-8150+lighter OC) can't reach stock performance from i5-2400.. we don't even need to ask about the i5-2500k.

FX-8120/8150 performs worse, sometimes performs equally a i5-2400/i5-2500k... I don't see a reason to stick with the FX for now

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------------------------------ Core i7 2600k, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB Patriot DDR3, 2TB HD , SLI GTX 460 1GB, XFX 750W BE, 3D Vision, CM 690 II Advanced
Reply to vitornob

2500k or if you can't afford that the 2400, hands down, no better value out there. If you have the budget for a 7970 it tears BF3 apart, good luck .

Message edited by joedjnpc on 02-16-2012 at 11:59:41 AM

------------------------------ Intel i7 920 D0 4Ghz, Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5, Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 X58, Antec 1200 Big Tower Black, 8 GB Corsair Dominator GT 1600MHz, 1 x 128 GB OCZ SSD, 2 x 512 GB HDD, CoolMaster Silent Pro 1000W, 24" Samsung LED 1920X1080
Reply to joedjnpc

p07h34d wrote :

2400 would be a prime choice if you planned on upgrading to the Ivy Bridge to later on fully support your 78xx/79xx radeon card you choose to put in your machine. I am sure a 2500K can easily handle two 7970s but a Ivy Bridge would be epic

might as well go with the 2500k if your considering the 2400, its not much more expensive.

I wish people would quit telling this guy to go with a 7970 or 7950...No way can he budget that if he is not reusing hardly anything.

I mean really $450-600

~$500 left...how the heck is he gonna get a cpu/mobo/ram/case/psu/hdd/SSD ...he's not so actually suggest something reasonable.

As for the people arguing about the FX / 2500k...Your foolish if you think the FX is better then the 2500k. Every site out there can tell you that your wrong. However, I will admit that on certain tests/overclocks an FX can compete with the 2500k/2600k, but like I said...certain rare occasions. Even then the Heat/wattage is much greater.

Cpu - 2500k
Mobo-msi asus gigabyte...~$130
hdd- cheap 500gb/750gb ~$80
GPU - 560ti/6950 (this would be the lowest I'd reccomend)
Case - something cheap but good ...corsair/antec/fractual/zalman/coolermaster (silverstone, lian li etc will be more expensive) ~60-$80
ram - $30-40 corsair 1333/1600 xms set ..go with 8gb's
windows- get a 64 bit version...are you a student? check with college to see if they give free/discounted upgrades/copies.
psu - 500w-650watt...corsair makes a decent builder series. If not on sale go for antec neo or XFX.

SSD will have to wait...the price to storage ratio is not worth it for the price your trying to keep it under.

This will be very close to what you can afford.

Future upgrades (GPU, SSD, PSU depending)

If you don't plan on buying soon...wait for IVY bridge and nvidia cards...you could get a better gpu at a lower cost once they hit the market..Expect gpu prices to drop when they do.

Message edited by hotthree on 02-16-2012 at 04:05:11 PM

Reply to hotthree

I appreciate all the suggestions both for the higher end stuff and what is within the budget I posted. What I buy really depends on what I decide is worth spending the money on because I do have more money.

And I am a student so I will be getting a discount on it, just not sure how much yet.

Reply to gentilexsan

vitornob wrote :

Concerning about the FX-8150 and the i5-2500k.

I like this article better: Picking A Sub-$200 Gaming CPU: FX, An APU, Or A Pentium?

Sometimes even a heavy overclocked FX-8120 (that's basically a FX-8150+lighter OC) can't reach stock performance from i5-2400.. we don't even need to ask about the i5-2500k.

FX-8120/8150 performs worse, sometimes performs equally a i5-2400/i5-2500k... I don't see a reason to stick with the FX for now

If you owned FX you would see all the BS Intel sales marketing propaganda campaigning is lies from Intel giving biased review kits to the reviewers and guidelines to highlight the worst of BD and you can do the same with any Intel chip as well. Welcome to the world of Corporate politics where exploitative, manipulative and negligent behavior gets rewarded.

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Reply to Boopoo

Boopoo wrote :

If you owned FX you would see all the BS Intel sales marketing propaganda campaigning is lies from Intel giving biased review kits to the reviewers and guidelines to highlight the worst of BD and you can do the same with any Intel chip as well. Welcome to the world of Corporate politics where exploitative, manipulative and negligent behavior gets rewarded.

The feeble mind will always proclaim they are right no matter all the proof presented against their claim. What has the world come to?

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Reply to azeem40

p07h34d wrote :

Then please explain to me how a 955BE 4.0ghz = 8150 but a 955BE 4.0ghz does not = a 2500K

I GUESS ITS ALL A BIG FAT LIE AND WE ALL JUST NEED TO USE P3's again.

fail no 955 can stably OC to 4ghz

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Reply to Boopoo

azeem40 wrote :

The feeble mind will always proclaim they are right no matter all the proof presented against their claim. What has the world come to?

I own 8150 an it is not crappy like the benchies and Intel bigots claims and I own an 2500K machine and it is comparable for the tasks I conduct.

Reply to Boopoo

p07h34d wrote :

What rock did you just crawl out from under.

Here goes just a few people that submitted their stable overclocks into toms list

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub [...] utput=html

6x 955BE's @ 4.0ghz stable....

Soooo, tell me again, how does a 955 not be stable at 4ghz?

Do you even play BF3 lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7S [...] ure=relmfu

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Reply to Boopoo

p07h34d wrote :

So I show you a link giving 6 different people that willingly posted their overclocks on this forums, and you send me a youtube link with nothing else to say. I won't even bother clicking it lol.

Why does nobody have a sense of Humor around here on TH forums lighten up peace dawg ;-) PS I can get my 955 up to 4.2ghz that doesn't mean I can play games and use it stable without crashing.

Message edited by Boopoo on 02-17-2012 at 04:48:07 AM

Reply to Boopoo

I know my FX-8120 @4.2Ghz must be complete crap, however I play BF3 multiplayer with my HD 6870 CF setup and get and average of 85-90FPS on Custom ULTRA (only 4xAA) settings on one monitor 24" 1920x1080. But...... yeah.......... its complete crap..........

Reply to Rage33

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